


the beginning and middle

by ntkrrs



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Affection, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Idealism, Implied Sexual Content, Ishval Civil War, Post-War, Royai - Freeform, War, Young Love, Young Royai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23929777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ntkrrs/pseuds/ntkrrs
Summary: The nature of the question shocks her—she and Roy almost never speak of their past, not because of shame, but because she had always thought that they’d finally made peace with it. But she knows Roy; he’s a far more sentimental person than she.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	the beginning and middle

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this for @royaigarbage over at tumblr some time ago. enjoy.
> 
> unbeta'd.

“It will take time to study, Miss Riza,” Roy murmurs lowly, as if he would bother spirits if he spoke any louder.

“Take as much time as you need,” she responds quietly, in a voice that sounded stronger than she felt.

He seems to pick up on that. “Miss Riza, I… We shouldn’t do this tonight. It will take weeks, maybe months. I need to prepare, review what I know.”

Riza clutches her shoulders, her arms crossed over her chest. “I understand.”

* * *

Rage. Blood-boiling, all-consuming rage.

 _Traitor_ , a voice screams inside her, a voice that sounded very much like her father, _He’s a TRAITOR—you stupid, stupid girl—_

The sight of his face in her crosshairs makes her fingers run cold, like she was trapped in a frozen lake, not in a desert in the middle of the day surrounded by dead bodies.

The voice returns. _He’s a traitor, and you gave him the power to kill because you’re a naive, gullible little girl who thought that the world needed a man like him. A man with ambition. Dreams are fickle, so are humans, so are you—_

“Traitor,” she whispers under her breath, and her finger tightens on the trigger. At the last second, she shifts and fires at an Ishvalan that had gained ground behind him.

* * *

“How long did this take to make?” he murmurs under his breath, fingers trailing the circles. A warm cup of tea sits in front of her. Darjeeling, perhaps. She likes it—thin, floral. It’s thoughtful of him to have prepared her a cup.

“About a month,” she answers, trying to stay still.

“Miss Riza, I can copy it and study it in my own time,” he suggests, taking the sheet on the bed next to her and draping it over her shoulders. She wraps it around herself and she faces him. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me.”

“I’m not,” she says kindly, her hand reaching out from under the sheet and lightly touching his own. “I very much enjoyed your company, or what I could have of it, in my father’s house.”

“I feel the same.” Roy smiles, friendly and at ease.

“But I do have a favor to ask of you, Mr. Mustang,” she says. “I was hoping you could teach me.”

Roy flashes her a curious look. “Pardon?”

“My father wrote the secrets of his research on my back,” she confesses, “And I don’t know a thing about alchemy. I’d like to… learn of his legacy, if you will. I carry it on my back but don’t understand what it all means.”

Roy sees it for what it is—a daughter’s one last attempt at getting to know what kind of man her father was. He flips his hand and intertwines their fingers with a squeeze. “Of course.”

* * *

The slap is sharp and heavy in the dark. They’re away from camp, in a deserted part of the Ishvalan ruin. No one is here to witness her heartbreak.

“How dare you?” she says with complete contempt for him, for Roy Mustang, who had taken her trust, threw it to the ground, and spat on it. “I _trusted_ you.”

He is silent, staring at her feet. His coat is tattered and dusty, and his face has streaks of dirt. 

Her voice is dangerous. “You _betrayed_ me.”

“I did not choose to fight in this war,” he says desperately, miserably, and the hand that is poised to strike him stops briefly before coming down on his cheek again.

“I did not choose for my father to be my father,” she snaps, and she hates how her voice trembles. Days of death and killing are weighing down on her tonight.

“We’re powerless people, then.”

“You chose to fight and burn people alive,” she says, biting. He flinches. It’s a low blow.

“You chose to show me his work,” he says weakly. 

It was like a slap to the face. “So their deaths are my fault?”

“ _No_ , I could never—”

“I gave you the power to kill hundreds of innocent people in a fraction of a second—”

“Riza, what do you want me to _say_?” he cries desperately, finally looking her in the eye. His gaze is wet and glassy and pleading. “That I’m a murderer? That _you’re_ a murderer?”

“That I _made_ a murderer,” she seethes, and at the sharp inhale he makes they both realize that it’s true. She created him. She gave power to a monster, and it breaks her heart. The betrayal isn’t his, it’s _hers_.

Tears start to fall—exhaustion, disbelief, and sorrow. She’s responsible for the people he’s killed, and the people _she’s_ killed. She’s not innocent. She’s guilty. She’s tired of feeling guilty.

She cries, for the first time since her father died, and when Roy tries to catch her, she pushes him away.

* * *

“Incredible,” Roy says under his breath, staring intently at a particular section of her back.

“What is?” Riza asks, her chin propped on her arms as she laid with her front to the bed. She’s staring out into the heavy rain drenching fields outside her window.

“He’d discovered probably the most powerful iteration of flame alchemy—here,” he said, trailing his fingers on her upper left back, “is the formula for a _manmade_ nuclear fusion.”

“Is that remarkable?”

“It’s almost unheard of,” Roy says absently under his breath. “It seems like there’s solid groundwork, but it’s a very shaky thing to test in the real world. I could wipe out your house if I did something wrong.”

Riza hums. “My father is a brilliant man,” she says with a small smile.

“Very,” Roy agrees, lifting his hands from her back a touch longer than he needed to. It doesn’t slip by Riza.

* * *

His trembling hands shake as they move across her back.

“Here,” he says, then swallows. “I’ll start here, where the formula for the nuclear fusion is written. And some other things here.” His hands drift. “I’ll—” he chokes, “I’ll keep it small. Remove what’s important, most damaging if anyone were to—”

“No. Burn it all,” she says with resolve.

Words leave him for a moment. “No, Riza, I can’t—”

“You should. Nothing should remain. All the knowledge of Flame Alchemy—you owe me this!”

“No, I—”

“ _Get rid of it_ —”

“ _NO_!” Roy screams, pulling his hand away. She stops, because the voice that rips from his throat is desperate and raw. “I can’t. I can’t hurt you. I can’t—I won’t. I _won’t_.”

Riza stops. She clutches the tan coat he gives her once she slips off her military jacket.

“Please don’t make me,” he says, voice small. She has never heard him like this, and her heart aches.

“Why?” she asks, when thinks she knows why, but when he finally stands in front of her and meets her gaze, she knows why.

Slowly, he takes her hand of his coat and lets it drift to the floor. Riza’s heart is pounding in her chest, moreso than when she had her first kill. This is not in trepidation or in apprehension. This is a different kind of thrill, one she knows is desire. Part of her thinks that she simply needs reprieve from the war, that they both need reprieve from the war.

But she thinks back to her father’s house, of companionable afternoons, of warm pots of tea shared during the early mornings. She wants that. She wants him.

She wants this man, despite his sins.

He doesn’t move, and even if she’s shirtless in front of him, he’s staring her straight in the eye, not looking anywhere else.

She leans up to kiss him.

He responds in earnest. “I’m sorry,” he whispers when he pulls away. “I’m _so_ sorry I hurt you.”

She kisses him again.

* * *

She doesn’t remember how it happens, but it does.

Alcohol was involved, but one glass of whiskey isn’t a good enough excuse. It was late. They were tired?

Roy is kissing her. She was kissing him back. This was… nice.

He pulls away and presses his forehead to hers, his hand on her nape. His breath is warm on her face. “I want to know,” he breathes, “if you want this as much as I do. Because if you don’t, just say the word and I’ll stop.”

Want this? What was this? Sex? A connection? A one night stand? A relationship? What a headache, to define boundaries.

“What do you want from me?” she asks.

He chuckles lowly. “Aside from you?” He kisses her cheek. “I want you to know that I appreciate what you and your family have done for me. I want you to know that you can trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she says wholeheartedly.

“And,” he continues, “I want you to want me.” He meets her gaze. “Do you want me?”

Hours later, when she’s nearly falling asleep on his chest, she speaks. “I think I do.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure.” She props herself up to look him in the eye. “But I want this. I want right now.” She stares at his face. “Do you want _me_?”

“Yes.” He takes her hand and kisses the inside of her wrist. “I want this. I want you now.” He leads a trail of kisses up her arm, her shoulder, her neck. “I want to see your face when I get back from an assignment on the field.”

Her chest fills with warmth, and a blush mars her cheeks. “You want more than this.”

“Yes,” he says, unabashed, but blushing. “I want more than this.”

She has nothing else to say, so kisses him instead.

* * *

She bites down on his knotted spare gloves—it’s the only clean cloth he has. She’s drenched in sweat and tears and she can feel Roy’s hands shake when he dresses her wounds.

Riza spits out the knot. “Are you—” she chokes when his fingers leave her back, “Are you done?”

Roy takes a while to answer. Moments later, he leans over to press kiss to her shoulder. “Y-Yes. It’s—we need to get to a doctor. I’m afraid I didn’t do a good job.”

She laughs wetly. “Thank you,” she says, voice shaky but undeniably relieved. “Thank you.”

Roy kneels in front of her head as she lied facefront on the cot, and tries to speak. She lifts her eyes to his face and her heart breaks at the tear tracks that run down his cheeks. “I’m—” he chokes, “Riza, I’m—”

“Roy,” she says, gritting her teeth as she props herself up on her elbows.

“Don’t move—”

She reaches a hand for his face and it cups his cheek. His hand covers hers and he turns his face to press it into her hand.

“Thank you for saving me,” she says, voice cracking.

His eyes snap open and terror floods them. His face crumples in complete despair. “I did this to you.” His other hand takes her wrist. “ _I did this to you_.”

She offers a small bit of comfort. “I asked you to.”

It was like he didn’t hear her. “I’m sorry,” he sobs, pressing his forehead to hers. “ _I’m so sorry_.”

She lets him cry. When it gets to be too much, she cries with him.

* * *

When he’s her commanding officer and she’s his aide, she takes three weeks off to settle things in her father’s house. He somehow manages to accompany her despite her protests.

“Hawkeye,” Mustang says, leaning his head in his hand, elbow propped up against the window ledge.

“Yes, sir?” she responds, not looking away from the book she brought with her on the train ride.

“Are we punishing ourselves?”

The nature of the question shocks her—she and Roy almost never speak of their past, not because of shame, but because she had always thought that they’d finally made peace with it. But she knows Roy; he’s a far more sentimental person than she. “Punishment isn’t the same as atonement.”

He hums. “Are we doing a good job of atoning?”

“We’ll know when we’ve reached the end of the line.”

“The end of the line, huh?” he thinks aloud. “I said I wanted more than what I had with you.”

She tries to hold back a smile. “Did you get what you wanted?”

Roy chuckles and his eyes finally meet hers. “Not in the way I expected.”

“Are you complaining?”

He thinks for a bit. “No, I’m not.”

“Good.” 

“Are you?”

She finally lets the smile through, a small, quiet thing that reflects itself on Roy’s face. “I’m not, either.”


End file.
